Instagram and Snapchat Temporarily Remove GIFs in Stories

14 March 2018

In separate statements, both Instagram and Snapchat revealed that they had temporarily halted the integration of the GIF library with their respective platforms, while GIPHY looks into it. The company confirms the change has been made but might take some time to propagate to all users. The reason is a racist GIF, which appeared as an option for users to add to their images on both the platforms, according to a report from TechCrunch.

"A user discovered an offensive GIF sticker in our library, and we immediately removed it per our content guidelines".

A source tells TechCrunch the same racist GIF was spotted in Instagram as well, indicating that Giphy is at fault.

Snapchat confirmed that all GIFs available within its application should be rated PG, which means they're suitable for ages 13 and older.

The GIF includes disturbing text including a racial slur, which TechCrunch has blurred out below. It read "N****r Crime Death Counter-Keep Cranking Bonzo, the Numbers Just Keep on Climbing!" and showed a white man holding a microphone directing a gorilla turning a crank.

To be honest, we enjoyed the function very much as it helped spice up our Instagram stories and made it even more entertaining.

Snapchat only launched the Giphy integration on February 20th so people could jazz up their photos and videos with moving images curated as safe by the Giphy team. However, things can slip as Giphy operates like search engine in which one the web's top GIFs get indexed.

Earlier "Today" reported about a new feature in Instagram. This slip-up may control Snapchat for working with reputed outside developers.

This animation was active on the Snapchat and Instagram has disabled the GIF feature in the apps.

This incident is tremendously embarrassing for not only Snapchat and Instagram, but also Facebook, the parent company of Instagram. A spokesperson of Instagram has confirmed about this update and assured that there is no place for this sort of content on Instagram. Facebook past year released the Messenger Kids app that includes a Giphy integration for kid-friendly imagery.